FINISHED:
Shan, Darren. (2010). The thin executioner. New York: Little, Brown & Co.

[After being publicly humiliated for his perceived weakness by his executioner father, Jebel embarks on a mythic quest to ask a fire god for invincibility in hopes of being able to return to his home and win a competition to be the new town executioner. Accompanying Jebel is a slave, Tel Hesani, whom he knows he will eventually need to sacrifice in order to appease the god, though along the way Jebel learns tolerance and the fact that it’s the journey, not what’s at the end of the road, that really matters. Shan, author of the popular vampire series Cirque du Freak (Little, Brown, 2001) has penned a (trademark) gory homage to Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn which includes cons, cannibals, and involuntary graverobbing. Most characters are a bit one-dimensional and the quest story is nothing new, but Jebel’s paradigm shift in regard to what he has always learned is traditionally “right” or “normal”, and the examination of religious differences (though somewhat heavy-handed) are important lessons. Plenty of blood is shed through realistic human-on-human stabbings, slicings and beheadings which should satisfy young adult horror fans [Reviewed from ARC.].]

STARTED:
Houtman, Jacqueline. (2010). The reinvention of Edison Thomas. Honesdale, PA: Front Street/Boyds Mills.

[Reviewing for ACL.]

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